Wireless-number do-not-call rules

Treat a business contact's cell number as a use question. The device does not decide the issue. Residential subscriber status follows the user's personal or residential use compared with business use; landline or cellular technology does not decide it.¹ Court decisions continue to disagree about how these protections apply to cell calls and texts.² Build the dial decision from the person's use, the call technology, and any stop request. Record the reason.

The rule to use

Separate the registry question from the phone question. Before you put a mobile number linked to a business contact into an outbound sequence, classify how the person uses it.

The National Do Not Call Registry is designed to stop unwanted sales calls from companies that follow the law.³ Registered telemarketers use it to identify numbers to avoid, but it does not block calls.⁴ The registry contains phone numbers and does not record whether they are landline or cell phones.⁵ Business phones cannot be registered.⁶ A registered residential or cellular number should stop most telemarketing calls.⁷

A business field does not tell you how the person uses the number, and a mobile field does not settle that question. Telemarketers generally may not place outgoing telemarketing calls to numbers on the National Do Not Call List unless an exception applies.⁸

Run the call decision

Before a number enters a sequence, document each answer. Move forward when the answer is documented and pause when it depends on an assumption.

Classify the use

Find out whether the number is used for business, personal purposes, or both. Ask, "Is this your work line, personal line, or both?" Listen for the person's actual use of the number. That is the distinction that matters in the residential subscriber analysis.¹ If the answer is unclear, hold the number for review instead of treating the mobile label as permission to call.

Check the registry position

Determine whether you are handling the number as a consumer number that may appear on the registry. Ask, "Have you registered this number on a do-not-call list?" Keep the result and the date of the check with the contact record. For registered telemarketers, the registry is a screening list, not a call-blocking service.⁴

If the record identifies a business phone, do not expect a registry entry to resolve the decision. Keep an internal suppression status for direct requests and prior call outcomes. That gives you a control for business numbers that the consumer registry may not provide.

Identify the channel

Keep live calls separate from automated calls, prerecorded messages, and texts. An automated call is dialed by a computer.⁹ A robocall is one in which the recipient hears a recorded message instead of a live person.¹⁰ Ask, "Will a live person place this call, or will a system send it?"

For cell phones, auto-dialed marketing calls and texts and prerecorded messages require prior express written consent.¹¹ Keep the consent record with the number and note the channel it covers. If you cannot show that consent, pause the automated call, prerecorded message, or text step until the basis for contact is clear.

Screen texts separately

An approved calling record does not automatically approve texting. Unsolicited text sales pitches are illegal when the recipient's cell phone number is on the Do Not Call Registry.¹² Ask, "Has this person agreed to receive marketing texts at this number?" If the answer is missing, leave the text step out of the sequence.

Capture a stop request

Ask whether the person has ever told your company to stop calling or texting the number. Treat a clear stop request as an internal do-not-call instruction, even when the registry status is uncertain. A reported dispute over internal do-not-call procedures and registry compliance involved repeated telemarketing texts after a recipient requested that the sender stop and was told the recipient had been "successfully unsubscribed".¹³

Record the request in the contact record and suppress future touches across the channels your team controls. Do not make the person repeat the request to another caller. Move the number back into an active sequence only when you have a documented reason that permits contact.

Apply the state layer

Federal screening is only part of the decision when your campaign crosses state lines. Additional state telemarketing restrictions exist in Arkansas, Florida, Oklahoma, and Washington.¹⁴ Check the rule that applies to the caller, the recipient, and the channel before launching a broad sequence.

Exceptions can change the result for numbers on the registry. Charities and religious organizations may still call registered numbers.¹⁵ Companies with which the consumer has a current or prior business relationship may also call.¹⁶ Confirm each exception for the specific campaign, number, and channel.

What not to do

Avoid these errors:

• Do not classify a number as safe solely because it is a cell phone. The user's personal, residential, or business use is the relevant distinction in the court analysis.¹
• Do not treat registry screening as call blocking. The registry tells registered telemarketers which numbers not to call and does not stop the call itself.⁴
• Do not put an automated marketing call, text, or prerecorded message to a cell phone into sequence without prior express written consent.¹¹
• Do not send an unsolicited sales text to a cell number that is on the registry.¹²
• Do not continue after a person asks your company to stop. The stop request needs to control the internal call workflow.¹³